Look what we got

In 2000 many Democrats both locally and nation-wide blamed Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Teresa LePore for Al Gore's defeat in that year's Presidential election. The claim was her 'butterfly' ballot made votes that were supposed to go for Al Gore go to Pat Buchanan.

One thing I've always hated about the Democrats is their condescending attitude to many groups of people. We're too dumb, so they know what is best for us. NOT!

For four years Democrats were gunning for LePore even though she was a registered Democrat. Not long after the election she changed her affiliation to independent. Wanting revenge for 2000 the a lot of Democratic resources were poured into challenging LePore in 2004. Despite all the talk, the best the Democrats could do was recruit former School board member Arthur Andersen.

Besides being a former school board member, Mr. Andersen was a FAU college professor, owned his own consulting firm, and is African-American. Democrats thought all of this would make him the appealing alternative in the quest for avenging the 2000 election.

There is another side to Dr. Andersen that some Democrats tried to forget. While he was on the school board, a over hundred million bond issue for school construction was mishandled. The money going for other projects or for teacher salaries. This was a major scandal over ten years ago. Plus Dr Andersen has had a series of tax liens placed against him by the IRS.

So with the primary election approaching last summer, the liberal Palm Beach Post and no fan of LePore actually endorsed LePore over Andersen. Saying Mr. Andersen's lack of experience(LePore had over 20 years in the election office before getting elected supervisor) and his history of poor financial decisions made him unacceptable. This didn't stop local Democrats who poured a ton of money into ousting LePore. A small county race had Hollywood celebrities and politicians from other parts of their country trying to influence the outcome by endorsing Andersen. Revenge won out, Andersen won a squeaker in the Primary. The write-in for November didn't even campaign. So now Dr Andersen is Elections supervisor.

Now what do we have?

1- Two months ago Dr. Andersen asked for a 87% percent increase in his office budget.

2- He hired people for the elections office who had worked on his campaign. At salaries higher than current employees.

3- Dr. Andersen sees part of his work as informing voters about local issues, like the ongoing Scripps debacle(another multi million dollar waste of money by our local politicians)among others. He was elected Elections Supervisor not town crier.

4- It came out after the election that Dr. Andersen didn't disclose a loan to his campaign and some bank accounts he has on financial disclosure forms. Dr. Andersen has agreed to pay a fine to the Florida commission on ethics as was today reported in the Palm Beach Post.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2005/06/04/s1b_anderson_0604.html

Anderson set to pay fine over bad disclosure
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 04, 2005

Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson will admit filing a deficient financial disclosure form and agree to pay a fine to the Florida Commission on Ethics, his attorney said Friday.

The ethics panel, in a closed-door hearing in Tallahassee Thursday, found probable cause to believe Anderson violated reporting requirements by failing to list his house, a $25,000 loan to his campaign and two bank accounts totalling $2,605 when he filled out his disclosure form last year as a candidate, attorney Mark Herron said.


"I admitted from the start there were a couple of omissions, so those have been addressed," Anderson said Friday. "The omissions were not deliberate. They were just oversights."

To me Dr. Andersen it seems either financially incompetent or a very dumb crook or charlatan. The Democrats got their revenge, now we got a joke in public office. It's really dumb too, the Broward County Elections Supervisor was removed from office by Governor Bush over a year ago. We could well be on the road to the same here in Palm Beach County. But how much taxpayer money will be wasted for this fit of Democratic vengence.

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